Author: Abhimanyu Ghoshal / Source: The Next Web
Over the past couple of weeks, Twitter and Instagram have begun testing ways to reduce visual emphasis on users’ follower counts. The tweaks aren’t much more than changes in font size and where the text appears. But they represent a shift focus away from personalities’ popularity to the content they create, and the value they bring to the community.
I’m totally in favor of this, and I hope these companies expand their experiments to see how they play out. And I’m not the only one.
we should be able to participate in social media without having to show how many followers or likes we have. Just like how we can turn off the comments we should be able to turn off the display of followers. This has an intense negative impact on our self worth.
— ye (@kanyewest)
For once, West is right. Several studies have linked social media to depression, sadness, loneliness, envy, and to a drop in self-esteem. At the risk of weakening my case, I’ll add that an older study dating back to 2009 had found that spending time on social networks made people happier. But as someone who engages with social media in a personal and professional capacity, I find that follower counts on…
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